1997, 1998, 1999 or 2000?When did Fethullah Gulen move to the US?

Page created Oct 21, 2012; last updated Dec 16, 2012

Gulenist sources cannot seem to decide when Mr. Gulen is supposed to have moved to the US. Depending on which source is consulted, it could be 1997, 1998, 1999 or even 2000. This is another example of what Professor Joshua Hendrick calls the "strategic ambiguity" of the Gulen Movement. Hendrick also noted that the year of Gulen's birth changes from 1938 to 1941 depending on which source is consulted - cf. Hendrick's talk at Rice University and quotes from his thesis. See further down this page for more on the 1938/41 inconsistency.

How it benefits the Gulen Movement to generate confusion about exactly when Gulen moved permanently to the US is a good question. A possible clue may lie in a Feb 9, 2009 column by Ihsan Yilmaz in the Gulenist propaganda newspaper Zaman, which attempts to debunk a publication by Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst entitled "Gulen movement: Turkey's third power." Yilmaz writes: "The analyst's claim that '[i]n 1998, Gulen was forced to leave Turkey to avoid prosecution' is also wrong as he left the country several months before the case was filed." Yilmaz is perhaps attempting to deny that Gulen's departure was to avoid facing criminal charges. Reinforcing this theory is the fact that a close associate of Gulen's, Harun Tokak, was quoted in the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet in August 2000 as saying that Gulen had left the country for health reasons, had always complied with Turkish law, and would return if an arrest warrant were issued. Ankara State Security Court Chief Prosecutor Nuh Mete Yuksel filed charges against Gulen in August 2000, accusing him, under Turkey's anti-terrorism legislation, of trying to undermine Turkey's secular system. Presumably this is what Yilmaz referred to in his Feb 2009 column as "the case." If so, Yilmaz is implying that Gulen left Turkey "several months before" August 2000, that is, in early 2000.

Following are examples of Gulenist sources giving conflicting information about the timing of Gulen's move to the US.

Today's Zaman, October 2012 (link)"He [Gulen] is in self-imposed exile in the US, although
there is no legal hurdle that prevents him from returning to Turkey. Shortly
after he went to the US in 2000, he was charged with establishing an illegal
organization in Turkey but was eventually acquitted in 2008."Note: Zaman is run by the Gulen Movement, as confirmed by Mustafa Gokhan Sahin's doctoral dissertation, Florida International University, 2010: "Zaman, which is currently the bestselling newspaper in Turkey, was established together with different Muslims [sic] groups, and later solely controlled by the Gulen community."

Rumi Forum website (link)"Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish educator and spiritual leader, has lived in a bucolic retreat outside the small town of Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, since 1998. That was the location of a wide-ranging interview granted earlier this year to Brian Knowlton from the International Herald Tribune. The following text is based both on the interview and on questions submitted earlier to Mr. Gulen; the answers were translated from the Turkish by his assistants. ..."Fethullah Gulen: When it comes to my living in America, in 1997 I came here due to my health condition, and as soon as I was diagnosed and treated by the doctors here I returned to Turkey. In 1999, I had to come back to the US for further treatment."

Fethullah Gulen website, article by James Harrington (link)"Gulen comes to U.S. for medical treatment (B-2 visa) (March
21, 1999)"Doctoral dissertation of Mustafa Gokhan Sahin, Florida International University, 2010"On March 21, 1999, Gulen went to US for medical treatment amidst legal prosecutions....He still resides in the USA for over a decade without ever returning to Turkey."Dogan Koc "Strategic Defamation of Fethullah Gulen: English vs. Turkish" (book) University Press of America, 2012"In 1999 Gulen moved to United States for medical treatment, where he still lives today."Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, booklet for "Fethullah Gulen Chair for Intercultural Studies" (link)"In 1999, Gulen moved to the US to receive medical care for his diabetes and cardiovascular diseases."Conference paper on fethullahgulen.org website, "Opening the Road to Dialogue: An Amalgamation of Gülen's and Spinoza's Ideas on Tolerance and Dialogue Applied to The Situation of Muslims in the Netherlands" by Kate Kirk and Gurkan Celik, Nov 21, 2007. Presented at the "International Conference on Peaceful Coexistence: Fethullah Gulen's Initiatives for Peace in the Contemporary World," Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Nov 22-23, 2007 (link)."Gulen was born in Erzurum, eastern Turkey and has lived in Pennsylvania USA since 1998."Fethullah Gulen website (link)
"The Cultivation of Memory in the Gulen Community," Marcia Hermansen, Oct 25, 2007 "With Gulen's move to the United State since 1997 the focus has further
expanded to inter religious dialogue and a global expansion of projects and
institutions."

Affinity Intercultural Foundation, a Gulenist organization in Australia (link)
"In the book, 'My Small World'
Gulen claims that he has no worldly possession/wealth. He has endowed the
sizable royalties from his best selling books to educational institutions
formed in Turkey and beyond. His minimal pension salary from serving at Diyanet
is used to pay for the rent living in one of the rooms of the Camp site that he
is staying at in Pennsylvania. He has lived in US continuously since 1997
and has not returned to Turkey as of 2008."

Non-Gulenist sources: 1998 or 1999

Joshua Hendrick "Media Wars and the Gulen Factor in the New Turkey" Middle East Report Vol. 260 Fall 2011"In 1998, just before he was indicted on conspiracy charges in Turkey (he was acquitted in 2006), Fethullah Gulen fled—citing health reasons—to the United States, where he remains today."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette March 30, 2012 (link)"Mr. Gulen is founder of the Gulen Movement, which is based on a principle known as 'hizmet' or service to the common good. He came to the U.S. in 1998 and as part of his legal argument for attaining a green card, he said the principles of the Gulen movement are the foundations for hundreds of schools established in North America, Europe and Asia."

New York Times April 25, 2012 (link)"Mr. Gulen lives in self-imposed exile on a 25-acre haven in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania. In 1999, he fled Turkey amid accusations of plotting to overthrow the secular government."

USA Today August 17, 2010 (link)"In 1999, after traveling to the USA for medical treatment, Gulen was charged in Turkey with trying to create an Islamic state. Since then he has remained in Pennsylvania."

Pew Forum (link)"Gulen himself has been living in the United States for the past decade. He came to the U.S. for medical treatment in 1999 at a time when Turkish religious groups were under mounting pressure from the country’s secular military establishment. He decided to stay in the U.S. and eventually was granted permanent residency status. He now lives in a secluded compound in the Pocono Mountains in eastern Pennsylvania."

Confusion over Gulen's birthdateAs mentioned above, there is also confusion about Fethullah Gulen's date of birth, which is usually given as either 1938 or 1941.

Joshua Hendrick discusses this in his 2009 doctoral thesis (University of Santa Cruz):"How Gulen's handlers present his birth date provides an illustration in point. In the Turkish edition of Enes Energe's (2005) Gulen Hareketinin Analizi Gelecegin Caga Tanikligi (Tradition Witnessing the Modern Age: An Analysis of the Gulen Movement), Gulen is presented as being born in 1938 in the northeastern Anatolian city of Erzurum. In the 2008 English edition of Ergene's book, Gulen's birth date is updated to 1941. In Ali Unal's (2005) Gecmisten Gelecege Kopru: Fethullah Gulen (A Bridge from the Past the Future: Fethullah Gulen) Gulen is again presented as being born in April 1941. This confusion exists throughout the literature. The truth is that before 2001, Gulen is described as being born in 1938. After 2001, he is presented as being born in 1941. Why the discrepancy over his age, and why the focused effort to update all pre-existing accounts to 1941?"

Hendrick then recounts how a "close student" and "personal biographer" of Gulen says the true date is 1938, but explains it away by saying that in the eastern Anatolia of that time, people were often late with registering their children's births. Hendrick continues:"The free authority had by Gulen's handlers to change the date of his birth illustrates the degree to which the GM [Gulen Movement] alternates its history to meet the demands of the present. If Gulen's biographers presented his birth date as being in question, he would become less than perfect. There would need to be some account for why his parents waited three years to register him. Such an account would affect the official story of Gulen's life in general, and would lead to even more questions."In fact, the situation is even more complicated than Hendrick suggests. It cannot be explained simply by a clean shift in the purported date from 2001 onwards, as shown by several recent doctoral dissertations written by Gulen's followers. Erkan (a.k.a. "Ercan") Acar (Marywood University, 2012) says Gulen was born in Erzurum in 1941; Hasan Aydin (University of Nevada Reno, 2011) states that he was born in Erzurum in 1938, and Mustafa Gokhan Sahin (Florida International University, 2010) gives Gulen's birth year as 1938.

U.S. newspapers and publications are also inconsistent about the year. A New York Times profile of Gulen from 2008 says 1938. Claire Berlinski's autumn 2012 article in City Journal says 1941. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, in an October 2010 article, said Gulen was 69 years old, implying 1941. From the way this article was written, it is unclear whether this was part of a quote from Bekir Aksoy, one of Gulen's handlers, or whether the Tribune-Review itself was reporting Gulen's age as 69. Gareth Jenkins, in Turkey Analyst, Vol. 5 No. 13, June 25, 2012, says 1941.Mustafa Gokhan Sahin, who has several Gulenist affiliations (as of late 2012, he was director of the Istanbul Center in Atlanta), gives an alternative, more detailed explanation of the 1938/1941 inconsistency in his dissertation, one that may perhaps also offer insight into why Gulen writes his name as "M. Fethullah" instead of using his (presumed) given first name:"According to his own records, Gulen's birth caused a tension between his family and the early republican state officials. Right after the birth of Gulen, his father, Ramiz wanted to name him ‘Muhammed Fethullah’ after the prophet Muhammad. However, the government official who was in charge of registering the birth certificates rejected this name due to its religious connotations. It was secularism's heyday in Turkey. Angry with the registry officer, Gulen’s father left without registering his son. After a while, Ramiz was elected to the village administration and established friendship with the military sergeant in the town. Three years after Gulen’s birth, his father had another child. He took his military sergeant friend to the registry office with him. The Military sergeant ordered the officer to name the children the way Ramiz wanted. However, after the sergeant left, the registry officer named Fethullah without Muhammed.... That’s why Gulen’s official birthday is April 27, 1941, roughly 3 years later than the actual one. This event and how Gulen’s father dealt with it are remarkable examples of how Muslims deal with the state and its policies. Instead of direct confrontation, they find a nonconfrontational way within the state bureaucracy."

This account would be consistent with Hendrick's conjecture that the switch to the 1941 birthdate was motivated by a desire to avoid questions. Specifically, the GM may wish to suppress this story out of a desire to minimize any impression of conflicts with the Turkish government.

Nevertheless, given the Gulen Movement's extensive track record of distortion of facts, it is impossible to conclude which of the various assertions is correct.